


Things We Lost in the Fire

by hariboo



Series: If You Want To Live [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Everyone Else Shows Up in the Background, F/M, Robots Sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They lost Loki when they sunk Manhattan. Three years laters Loki finds them and that's really when everything begins. This is that beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Lost in the Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuzzy_paint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzy_paint/gifts).



> Because me and ange love beginnings. ;) Accompanying [spam at tumblr](http://hariboo.tumblr.com/post/45222821170/thor-terminator-au-for-anges-fuzzy-paint). Incredibly unbeta'd.

They lost Loki when Manhattan sank. 

According to Darcy, who still tried to keep the days in order, it was a Tuesday. She had been arguing about it earlier. It was an old familiar argument, like who's turn it was to do the laundry, but they no longer had laundry to do. Even Jane had stopped trying to count the days. She did still kept track of the time of year though for all of them, guiding herself by the placement of the stars in the sky. 

Before, Jane had been on the fast track to become one of the world's most brilliant astrophysicists. Darcy had been her intern. They had been in New Mexico when the machines took over. 

Thor had been on leave from the army, visiting home miles away. 

He didn't meet Jane until months after the bombs fell. Her hair had smelled like smoke and her eyes had been dark. She had run over T-800s and Darcy had slid the door of their truck open, yelling for Thor and the others to hop in. 

They had barely made it out Houston alive. 

(The truck had lasted until a burnt corn field in Iowa. It was probably still there covered in ash.)

When they lose Loki it's because it is part of the plan. Not to lose Loki, but to deal with the camp on the island. It was one of their biggest.

The machines had pretty much destroyed Manhattan on J-Day but they keep a prison camp in what used to be Central Park. The plan had been to get into the camp, save any and all that they could and make the machines wish they had never touched the small island. Jane had been a scientist before. The stars might have been her field of study, but she knew enough about chemicals, bonds, and electrical circuits to know how bombs works. To know how to make them. Sometimes Thor still can't believe what her hands can build and how much they've destroyed. Manhattan was… It gave Jane a name. She and Hogun - ex-army, like Thor; bomb squad - had managed to rig for the energy outpost of the prison camp to overload the ones crackling around the city. The explosion was seen for miles. 

Manhattan crumbled behind them.

Thor and the others were running across the Brooklyn Bridge, but Loki had not made it to the other side. His brother had wanted to make sure they all crossed before setting the last charge. It was his plan after all. Loki had always been fast, but the machines were faster and the fire even more. 

They lost Loki when they destroyed what remained of the island. They had waited a week hoping he would find his way to the rendezvous spot when they finally couldn't wait anymore.

Loki never showed up. 

They have not returned to the East Coast since. 

-

Loki eventually does find them. 

Part of Thor isn't surprised. Part of Thor had just been waiting. 

It's three years later and they've found a makeshift home base back in the West. Jane's reputation with explosives proceeded her across the country and so does his reputation and their group. Whispers follow them. Did you hear that one of them took two T-800s at once with their bare hands? Volstagg, but it had only been one. Did know one of them jumped from an exploding building and didn't get a scratch? Sif, and she had broken her leg. Is it true they rewired and drove a tank into a hostile area? Yes, and that was Jane and Darcy saving them once when they got too reckless one week and the machine camp was so close and Loki's ghost still lingered heavily in the air. Weren't they the one that sunk Manhattan? The ones that blew up that ship full coltan? One of them lost an arm ripping a chip out of a T-1000s head? (Fandral and he still is one of the best shots Thor knows.)

When finally someone corners them they almost don't stay. They've never stayed in one place longer than a week, but Steve promises them safety and Thor doesn't miss how Jane watches as Darcy drops asleep on a cot the second she can. He and Jane argue about it for about a day when he finally relents watching how Sif smirks at one of the stories told about them and how Darcy and Volstagg jump in to share the true facts. 

Stark wants Jane's brain and hands to battle the metal on their level. Rogers wants Thor and his team to fight and protect them.

For a long time they are very good at what they do.

Three years later, Loki finds them. Sif and Hogun run across him half starved at the edges of what used to be San Francisco on a long distance recon scout. When they bring him back he looks just like Thor remembers but shaper, paler. His eyes glint in such a way when he returns that Tony frowns. Jane's fingers curl into Thor's arm, her voice choking around Loki's name. He knows, that Jane, like him still feels responsible for what happened. The plan had been theirs - all three of them cobbling it up together for three weeks - and one of them hadn't made it back. 

Loki coming back, his thin body covered in a stolen coat two sizes too small, rocks them back to that day waiting on the edges Atlantic City. Jane hadn't wanted to leave, willing to wait one more week, and Thor had convinced her to go. The metal was swarming around them closer each day.

But now, Loki is back and his smile is sharp and familiar and there's a stiffness in it Thor attributes to three years and almost dying as he tell them the story of his survival. He made it to Atlantic City two weeks after they left, he says. They wouldn't have crossed paths by then. One week had always been the rule. Loki's rule. He's been alone since, he says, voice cracked and smooth as only Loki can do.

He sees Sif's jaw turn as Loki steps forward and hear Darcy's shocked yell, and in this world where hope something only few cling to anymore and he's not one of them anymore, Thor knows there's something odd in the air. Still, Thor can only wrap his brother in strong hug and asks for forgiveness. Over Loki's shoulder Thor can read the worry in Jane eyes even as she steps up and touches Loki's shoulder asking her own forgiveness. Loki's smile is both softer and sharper at once and Thor can't help but pull Jane closer to his side even as she leans up to hug Loki.

Loki turns to Thor and closes his hand over Thor's shoulder, fingers digging in with something bordering between desperateness and anger. "It's good to be home, brother. 

Thor nods and pulls Loki in closer again. Tries to push all his worries out.

It's been three years and Loki's found them again. The camp is a buzz, a returning solider is something worthy of celebration, but there is a tension in the air. 

-

Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's bad luck, Loki would always joke about being a bad penny found by their parents, but as it happens Loki finds them three days before the machines do.

The metal rains down on them as Jane, Tony and Bruce are in the basement running their test. Their machine is almost finished. The one Tony says will save them all. The one that Tony says will stop everything before it happens — and this time Jarvis won't— Tony always cuts himself off there. Thor hates the machine, which he's never seen, but it gives Jane restless nights and makes her nightmares worse when she curls around him at night after days of working non-stop on it and they both try to sleep. 

Even Darcy looks worried when she drags their three mad scientists up from the basement.

The test run is going well and that's when the explosions start. In the chaos as Sif and the others rush out to protect the base, Thor catches his brother's eyes and they glint blue like the metal does sometimes, but Loki is also following Steve and Natasha, gun in hand, and Thor can only think about the rumbling that's happening in the bunker below. Where Jane is. They all know that's why the machines have come. What Jane has built. 

Electricity is crackling around the room and he can hear Jane, Bruce and Tony's yells. A flyer has followed him down and he catches sight of Darcy pulling out the gun she hates she had to learn to use. Jane's eyes are wide, hair wild around her face, as Thor reaches her and she reaches up and kisses him like it's to be their last kiss ever. Thor grabs at her but she's only yelling words that he can't understand under all the static and shouts and then she's pushing him away—

Jane has never pushed him away, ever. Ever since they met she's only pulled him up and closer; she pulled him up into the van that saved him and the others that first night he took it too far (not for the first time, not for the last) she and Darcy decided to play heroes, pulled him into her life of bad music from the 80s, fingers that build bombs and Darcy, into a sense of purpose he thought he had lost when he lost his rank and home, she's pulled him into her arms and into her bed and smiled at him all throughout it like she couldn't help it. Like her smile was going to get him through it. And Thor's let her, loved her for it. 

To have Jane push him away is a shock almost as big as J-Day. 

Her words make no sense. Her kiss crushes half them but he can feel the shape of them against his lips.

Blue electricity is crackling around him, biting into his clothes and skin and when the wall behind Jane, Tony and Bruce goes up in flames Thor yells out, reaching, and falls.

His knees hit the ground hard and ozone fills the air. His mouth tastes like copper and he realises he's bit his tongue. He's shivering. Remembering Jane and the others he rushes to stand when his legs wobble under him and he realises: there's no one around. It's raining. He's outside.

Jane's words come back to him. 

He's known what the machine is meant to do. Jane has a habit of mumbling and muttering when she's working and even more when she's sitting cross-legged in their small room that's more closet than room but they've never begrudged it. They lived out of stolen trucks and SVU's for years with five other people, six before Loki was lost. Thor's known what's meant to happen if they were ever successful. Tony's had a plan refined by Bruce and Steve. A plan he's known about it. Jane's words are now too clear in her mind. 

"There's more! We're making more! The Resistance is sending more! Find them! Los Angeles, the old Stark Industries warehouse… Find me! I was at Cal-tech! Stark Industries! Look for Bruce! They'll go after us first! I love you."

Those last three words had been pressed against Thor's mouth and blinking up to the sky - a night sky like he hasn't seen in years, a few stars twinkling in and out where the clouds don't cover it - he hates it for having stolen the future from him. A future he hated, and one filled with everyone he loves. Steadying himself on his feet Thor realises for the first time he's naked and he should probably get some clothes first. There's an alley with a trash bin in it and he hopes he gets lucky. He needs to get warm.

Jane mentioned the old SI warehouse in LA; he knows which one she meant, before they moved to their current location they had all lived in the tunnels under it. He'll go there first, see what's there waiting for him if anything is, but then there's only one destination in Thor's mind.

Cal-tech.

He should check the year. See where he is, where Jane sent him back. He always wondered what Jane was like when she was younger and still looking at the stars for answers. 

_They'll come after us first._

The words make Thor stop dead in the shadows of the alley. 

He remembers the wall blowing up and punches the wall. Jane knew, she knew what had been chasing him, chasing her, and threw him into a lightening storm of her own making to save him — no, to save all of them. To save her. Because if the machines made it out of the base they'll know what Jane, Tony and Bruce managed. They'll try the same. They've done it before. Thor closes his eyes and hates the future that's gone. 

The dumpster has an old blanket and he wraps it around himself. A few streets down there's a second hand shop he doesn't feel about breaking into and checks the date. 

2007.

He was, no, he _is_ still in the army. He also probably wouldn't looked twice at Jane. He's an idiot. 

It's maybe a day on foot to the SI warehouse, but there are cars now. Buses. He makes it in five hours, traffic is light. He never thought he would miss traffic. 

There's nobody there, but maybe Thor is the first. He leaves a mark that anyone from the base or the Resistance would understand. _Hang in there, I'll be back_. And normally, he would wait. A week at least, but there's a name and it's making his bones itch.

 _Cal-tech_.

Jane. 

_They'll come for us first._

Not if he can help it.


End file.
